Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Hellmouth had closed, Buffy thought, that was the important thing. Well, partially closed. Closed around this horrendous three-headed monstrosity that had been trying to come through it. Giles’s spell had stopped the world being deluged with wave upon wave of demons: it just hadn’t managed to squeeze this particular one all the way back through. That was a problem, but as long as it couldn’t move, they just had to keep their distance and wait for Giles to regain consciousness.

She looked down at his body, which she had just dragged out of the thing’s reach. If he regained consciousness: all these blows to the head weren’t healthy, especially at his age. She saw Willow sheltering behind a bookcase, out of the way of the ongoing combat around them, handed Giles over to her, and turned back to the fight. 

Angel and Faith were working together against the last of the Sisterhood-of-Jhe demons; two were splayed out dead on the ground, but this one was still kicking. Between them they had it on the ropes, but if they got too close to the snapping mouths of the three-headed hellmouth demon that could change very fast. 

Then she saw the Jhe demon sink its teeth into Angel’s arm, and she remembered what Giles had said about their paralytic venom. He staggered backwards towards her, limbs spasming, and she caught him and threw him behind her. This last demon would be down to her. 

Except then Faith crushed its skull with a mace, the impact throwing fragments of bone and red blood and blue skin everywhere, and she realised she needn’t have worried. 

Faith punched the air as what remained of it slid to the ground. “Yeah! Only room for one demonic warrior sisterhood in this town, right? The Slayers!” She grinned at Buffy, who smiled weakly. She had always prided herself on being able to break the monotony of life-or-death combat with quips, but right now, with two of their team incapacitated and her arm feeling like it might be broken, she didn’t have it in her. 

“Let’s hold the celebrating until we’ve dealt with that thing.” She pointed at the writhing mass of heads and slime. 

“I believe technically it’s called a Diablogorgon!” Willow piped up. The Diablogorgon screamed at them, as though it recognised its name, and flailed wildly, trying to reach them with its jaws. It was almost like a bouquet of flowers, three long stalk-like necks coming up out of the hole blasted open in the floor. She had no idea how long those necks were on the other side, but fortunately it didn’t seem able to push them through any further. At least not right now. 

“Will, can you complete the binding-spell-thing?” 

“Um, I think I… I sort of know what I would need to do, it’s just that…” Willow looked nervous, “I’d need to get up real close to it, just like, um…” Just like Giles did. Which had allowed him to partially close the hellmouth, but also get knocked out and almost eaten. 

“Ok, don’t do that,” Buffy was trying to game everything out. “We can just wait for Giles to come to, then maybe you and him can do it together. We have time.” 

“Uh, actually B…” Her stomach fell as she turned to see what Faith was pointing at. Three more Jhe-demons had appeared at the library door, their faces spattered with gore and blood. God knows who they had just eaten. But now they were here, and with Angel still paralysed she and Faith were outnumbered. 

She didn’t have time to think for long about how badly this sucked; the demons charged, the slayers charged to meet them, Faith going slightly ahead of her with the mace still in her hand, swinging wildly to throw the demons off-balance and stop them working together. Buffy landed a punch, then a kick, then whatever was wrong with her arm made the next punch go wrong, and suddenly it had her by the neck. It pushed her up against the wall, choking her, pulling its clawed hand back to strike at her face.

But before the demon could press its advantage home, something out of nowhere slammed into it, sending it flying away from her. 

At first she thought it was Faith, but no, Faith was over there, still whirling the mace, just about keeping the other two demons at bay. The thing that had saved her was there on the floor, wrestling the demon with knives in its hands, stabbing and stabbing and sending blood in all directions. From the snarling sounds, and the long black hair, she almost thought it was another of the Jhe-demons — a defector, somehow? But its skin wasn’t blue, in fact it looked familiar, but it was impossible, it couldn’t be…

“Kendra?” Willow was gaping, open-mouthed, as the demon stopped struggling and the form on top of it slowly stood, blood dripping from the knives in its hands. 

“Kendra?” Buffy echoed. Time seemed to slow down. It was definitely her: the hair, the skin, the build, even the black jacket she had been wearing when Drusilla had… 

“Kendra, I thought you were…” then the form turned to look at Buffy, and the last word came out strangled, “dead.” The ridged brow, the yellow eyes, the inhuman fangs: it was Kendra, but she was just as dead as Buffy had thought. A wound suddenly healed, just as suddenly re-opened. 

“Who the fuck is that?!” Faith's yell snapped her back to the present. Still two more Jhe-demons. Kendra had heard the yell too, and turned and leapt at one of them, catching it from behind while it was focused on Faith. The sisterhood of Jhe were fearsomely strong, and fast, but they weren’t that smart and they went down easily to bladed weapons. Knives in the back weakened it, and Faith finished it off by lodging the mace in its chest. But then the other demon caught Faith from behind, and knocked her down. Might have been able to finish her off if Kendra hadn’t been there to interpose herself and drive it back. 

Now the odds were better: three of them against one of it. It saw the danger, and kept its back to the books while they circled. She looked at Faith, trying to communicate with her eyes: a coordinated attack, like back at the nest? Two of them hold its arms, so the third can stab it through the heart? Faith glanced over at Kendra, as though to say ‘I’m on board, but what about the new girl?’ Then Kendra, without warning, threw one of her knives, hitting the demon’s chest near its neck. Giving Buffy a glance that said 'works for me', Faith charged in, grabbing the stunned demon and hauling it over a desk. Buffy didn’t have any weapons handy except a stake, but it worked in a pinch, jammed right into the demon’s heart. 

“Ok, so,” Faith was panting as she stepped back from the twitching body. “Really appreciate the surprise backup and all, but, uh, who the hell are you?” The Diablogorgon shrieked, as if echoing the question. 

Kendra’s face was human again, and she was standing straight, arms folded, just like Buffy remembered her. 

“I am Kendra,” she said, and Buffy couldn’t help but beam, hearing that accent again. She had spent so many months regretting that she had ever made fun of it. “The Vampire Slayer.” 

“Huh?” Faith just stared in confusion. The Diablogorgon gurgled in the background; they tried to ignore it. 

“Faith, we explained this, remember?” Willow was walking over to join the Slayers. “Buffy was briefly medically dead, which activated Kendra as the slayer, and when she died that activated you.” 

“Thanks Red,” there was a slight edge to Faith’s voice, “but she looks pretty alive to me.”

“I am not.” Kendra was absolutely still: any observer would notice that she was standing stiffly to attention, but Buffy could also notice that she wasn’t breathing, wasn’t even vibrating with the beat of a heart. She was surprised Faith hadn’t noticed by now. “I am risen as a vampire.”

Faith raised her eyebrows and looked at Buffy. There it is, she thought. The thing that spoils this reunion. She didn’t survive; you still let her die. It’s just that now you might have to kill her a second time. 

“If you’re a vampire, why are you helping us? Shouldn’t you be, like, hiding in case we slay you?” Kendra’s composure faltered a bit at that. She opened her mouth, tried to speak, then closed it again and looked down.

“I have had my soul restored to me.” Oh, okay. It felt like a dam was breaking inside Buffy: she’s like Angel, somehow, she’s really back. She bounded towards Kendra with her arms outstretched, stopping only when the other girl flinched away. 

“Sorry, whoops, I forgot, you don’t hug.” But Kendra was smiling back at Buffy. 

Willow was beaming too. “I also want to register that I would hug you if you did hugs!” 

But Faith still just looked confused: “How? Why? I don’t get it.” Kendra’s face straightened at the question. 

“Everything will be explained by my master. They will be here soon.” 

“Your master?” Faith looked from Buffy to Willow, “you guys know who that is?” They shook their heads. 

“This part is new to us too,” Buffy admitted, then reached out to gently touch Kendra’s arm. “Whatever the explanation is, it’s good to see you again.” 

“It is good to see you too Buffy.” 

At this point a shudder went through the floor. What had been a small crack branching out from the Diablogorgon’s hole was now a large crack. She glanced over at Giles: still out. 

“Uh, Will, any smart ideas about how to get that thing to stop breaking the floor?”

“Well I could, um, maybe… if you could go with me to, uh,” Willow looked as panicked as Buffy felt, “get eaten in my place while I finish the spell?” It didn’t sound like a great idea but if it was all they had…

“Didn’t that old man ever teach you tailored wards?” 

In the doorway was a figure dressed in black, about as much as any figure could be: black boots, black pants, black gloves, a black leather jacket over a black hooded jacket, and under the hood some kind of black mask that covered their entire face. 

As soon as she saw it, Kendra strode to the figure’s side and knelt, bowing her head reverentially. “Master.” The figure laid a black-gloved hand on her head lovingly, then turned a black-masked face towards Willow. 

“Well? You know the demon’s name and species, you have time and equipment. A witch of your power should be able to ward your path of approach.” 

Buffy saw Willow light up at the phrase ‘a witch of your power’, then deflate at the word ‘should’. She shook her head apologetically. “I, I don’t know any of the spells for a Diablogorgon…”

“It’s a rule-based system,” the figure was walking towards them, with Kendra following like a bodyguard. It was thin, and moved stiffly; Buffy couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman; Kendra had simply called it 'they'. “From knowledge of the system, and of the demon’s sigillic profile, we can deduce the spell to ward it.” 

“Oh! Yes, I’ve heard of this,” Willow was nodding slowly as the strange figure stood just out of reach of the flailing heads, inspecting what was left of the symbols drawn on the floor, “but Giles said it's so slow that it’s mostly for when you’re actively summoning a demon, and teaching it too quickly can, uh, encourage students to, uh, try that…” 

“Well we wouldn’t want to encourage you, would we?” The figure was kneeling, pulling things out of its pockets, shaking its head. 

“Uh, look,” Faith looked like every new development made her a little more annoyed, “don’t let me stop you ragging on Giles or anything but, uh, who the fuck are you?” 

“For now, you can call me the Magpie.” The figure stood as Faith approached; they were staring at each other a couple of feet apart. 

“Magpie? Like the bird?” 

“Yes. And you must be Faith, like the theological virtue?” Faith looked confused at that, and a little angry. 

“And Willow like the tree!” Willow seemed to want to defuse the tension; Buffy decided to do the same, more forcefully. 

“And Buffy like the, um,” she stepped in between Faith and the Magpie, “well I’m not sure actually, but, uh, without showing all the math, can you get this thing,” she gestured at the Diablogorgon, which waved a giant eyestalk as if in answer, “out of here?”

“Me alone, no.” There was something odd about the cadence of the Magpie’s speech, like each sentence was composed internally and then uttered as a single unit, rather than flowing spontaneously. “But with Ms. Rosenberg’s help, yes.” 

Willow lit up again at being asked to help, and Buffy stepped back to let the two of them confer in hushed tones about sigils and powders. She found herself standing between Kendra and Faith. 

“So, this is the girl I replaced? I feel like we never talk about her.” Buffy felt her gut lurch at this, looking at Kendra to see if she was reacting. It was true: she had avoided the topic wherever possible. But she didn’t want it to seem like she had just forgotten about her.

“Well, yeah, you know, it was…” she hunted for the right word. “Painful.” Was that the right word? She turned to Kendra. “I always wanted to say, about letting you die, that I’m, I’m–” 

“You did not let me die. I died in battle for the cause I lived for.” Had Kendra seen her starting to tear up? She was grateful for the deflection; she didn’t think she could get the word ‘sorry’ out without breaking down entirely. 

“There, see how the pentacle shines?” Buffy turned back to the witches, who were seemingly ready to start, “This powder extends that sigil’s reach because of their elemental resonance. Now chant.” Willow and the black-clad figure stepped forward, chanting something in unison. As they approached the Diablogorgon, it reached for them, trying to seize them into its various teeth and tooth-like growths, but seemed to find some sort of barrier or repulsion around them, always turning aside at the last moment. 

When they got close enough to be standing within the inner circle that Giles had originally inscribed—close enough that they could have reached out and touched the Diablogorgon, if anyone would ever want to do that—they exchanged looks and the chanting shifted. The Magpie kept going as before, in a language Buffy didn’t recognise, while Willow shifted into what sounded like Latin, perhaps the same Latin that Giles had been reciting earlier. 

Tremors went through the creature’s body, as though something below them, something on the other side, was pulling or shifting. Buffy, Faith, and Kendra all instinctively went into a fighting stance, readying themselves for whatever happened next. 

But in fact it was all over very quickly: the demon roared and flailed, but the spell had already been almost complete, and within a minute or two the creature had been yanked back out of their reality with a slimy “pop”, leaving just a hole in the floor and the wreckage of books and furniture strewn around from the battle. Willow’s voice, repeating the incantation one last time, was suddenly deafeningly loud in the silence. 

It was the silence that let them hear Giles’ voice. “No, Willow, it’s… too dangerous…” He was mumbling, his eyes closed, seemingly only half-awake but still able to warn and chide. “Hebron’s Almanac… let me…”

Buffy went to his side and lifted him gently into a chair, relieved that he was coming back to them. “It’s ok, Giles, it’s over. We did it.” He peered around the room (she had no idea where his glasses had gotten to) seemingly satisfied by the absence of demons. 

“Ah, good. Well done everyone.” He started to stand from the chair, “Buffy, Faith,” now he was pulling a backup pair of glasses from a pocket, “excellent work as always, and Willow and, and…” he put the backup glasses on, straightened up, and peered in surprise, “…and Kendra?” Now he was definitely awake. 

“Mr. Giles, sir,” Kendra walked towards him, still covered in blood, and bowed deeply. “I have returned to aid you.” 

Giles was, unusually, at a loss for words. He looked at Buffy for explanation. 

“Kendra got vamped,” she shrugged, “but now she’s got her soul again.” He frowned, looked between Buffy and Kendra a few more times, as though unsure whether to believe it. She realised there might be good cause for skepticism: it wasn’t like a vampire would be above simply lying. But… she was too exhausted to question it. For once, surely, something good was allowed to happen? 

“But how, exactly? The spell was lost until…Who could do that?” 

“That would be me.” The Magpie stepped forward, standing beside Kendra protectively, looking up at Giles long and hard as he stared back. For a long time nobody spoke. Then Giles sat back down, reaching around as though looking for a cup of tea. 

“Then I suppose I must ask you to, well, explain, as best you can, for this whole situation is, well,” he took off his backup glasses and cleaned them redundantly, “decidedly perplexing.” 

“Yeah, decidedly!” Faith nodded. 

“Alright,” the Magpie looked around at them, all now slumping, or sitting, or leaning, tired and battered in a circle around her and Kendra, who both stood still and upright, almost like robots. “I am a witch, or a sorcerer, or whichever term you would like to use. I am in touch with the online communities where Jenny Calendar, or Janna of the Kalderash, or whichever term you would like to use, corresponded about her research. Through that research, I learnt about her new translation of the Ritual of Restoration. I was uncertain of whether I could complete it successfully, but the portents indicated that something was to happen here tonight, and Kendra did not wish to face her friends without it. So we tried it, and succeeded. Then, at Kendra’s urging, we came to offer our assistance.” 

“You asked for this?” Everyone turned at the voice; Angel had recovered and was slowly, stiffly, climbing to his feet. His face was unreadable.

“I asked for this.” Kendra nodded. Her face was likewise a mask; Buffy remembered how many of their past interactions had consisted of them each trying to kill the other. 

“You know the gypsies meant it as a curse?” Angel was talking to the Magpie now, “A torture device, a weapon of revenge?” There was anger in his voice.

“I know perfectly well what the Kalderash meant it for.” It was harder to detect, but there was anger also in the Magpie’s oddly-cadenced voice. 

“Why would you inflict that on her? Kendra doesn’t deserve that!” 

The Magpie turned that unreadable black mask to Kendra, as though to ask if she wished to speak. Buffy wondered if they were a vampire as well: they didn’t seem entirely human, and the full-body concealment hardly inspired confidence, but witchcraft by itself could do plenty of strange things to a person’s body...

“I gave Kendra her soul because she asked for it. And because she doesn’t have to reckon with the same storied history as the fearsome Angelus.” The use of his old name made Angel flinch, and he looked away. Buffy put a hand on his arm, then asked the question that was really on her mind. 

“But how did you two meet?” 

“Yeah, tell us about the meetcute.” Faith’s joke made her realise how inappropriately romantic the question had sounded, but Kendra at least didn’t seem to recognise the connotation. 

“We were both lost; we helped each other find ourselves.” Now that sounded inappropriately romantic. “Kendra was at the mercy of Spike and Drusilla until their messy breakup let her escape. We met by chance and found the partnership mutually beneficial. Beyond that, the details don’t matter right now, and aren’t necessarily anyone else’s business.” 

Buffy exchanged looks with the others. The details might not be their business, but it was still a lot to swallow. 

“Seems like it’s our business as vampire slayers.” Faith tilted her head provocatively. “If all we have to go on is your word that she’s all soully. Are we supposed to just believe any vamp who says they’re a good guy?” 

Kendra took a step forward, squaring up to Faith, and without thinking Buffy slid herself in between them. “Hey. Kendra just saved my life. I think that gets her the benefit of the doubt.” 

“But that’s how it starts," Angel was closer to the Magpie now, looming over their slight frame, “and once it gets about that any vampire who helps out a slayer gets a pass, how long before every smart demon in Sunnydale figures out how to exploit that?” 

“So what I’m hearing,” the Magpie hadn’t moved, but Kendra was already at her side, bristling, “is that you should be the one and only. As long as Angel is the exception, that’s ok: if anyone else tries it that’s a slippery slope. Is that what you’re saying?” Buffy’s slayer-senses told her that both vampires were having to fight to keep their fangs hidden. 

“Maybe I am. Maybe my curse was prophesied, planned by the Powers That Be. It wasn’t just some witch playing God, toying with forces beyond mortal understanding.” He seemed to be half-aware of how self-important this sounded, but couldn’t stop himself from adding, “Maybe it’s my destiny.” 

“You have a destiny because the Kalderash made a choice. A member of that tribe put the spell on the internet, and now other people can make a similar choice.” 

Tension hung in the air. Willow was the first to break it. “So does this mean Kendra will be, just, generally around? Patrolling with Buffy and Faith? Hanging out in the library?” 

“If my assistance is required, I will do my duty as a Vampire Slayer.” Kendra and Angel stepped away from each other, Angel slinking unhappily into the shadows. “Subject to my master’s guidance and direction.” Kendra, Willow, and the Magpie exchanged glances; Kendra and Willow, at least, were smiling. Buffy realised she was smiling too, now that it was clear nobody was going to come to blows. Even Giles was doing that thing where he tried not to smile, but it still showed in the corners of his eyes. Only Angel and Faith weren’t smiling. 

“Oh, speaking of assistance!” Willow suddenly looked worried, “we should go check on Oz. A lot’s been going on and something could have happened…” She moved to retrieve the tranquiliser rifle. “Vampires are immune to Lycanthropy, right?” Kendra turned a confused look to the Magpie, who simply nodded approval, so she followed Willow to the door. 

When they were gone, the Magpie turned to Buffy. “It’s 5.03am. Several people here need to be away before the sun rises, but you can contact us any time you need to.” She handed her a card, with a number printed on one side, and an email address, all random numbers and letters, on the other. It felt like an oddly mundane mode of contact for such an arcane-seeming figure, but she took it all the same. 

The Magpie made to leave, but scanned the room first. Angel and Faith both looked actively suspicious, even hostile, while Giles’s doubtful look was tinged with curiosity. Buffy was too exhausted to know what exactly her own face was doing, except that she still wasn’t quite crying the tears that had come up when she first saw Kendra. That would be for later. For now, she hoped her face just looked neutral. 

The Magpie wasn’t even looking at her anyway. She was looking at Giles, the two of them regarding each other as though each trying to work something out. Eventually he looked down, and they turned and left without a word.

Chapter Text

“So when will Angel join us?” They had almost finished their third night of patrolling as a trio, and Kendra still hadn’t seen Angel once.

“Um, well…” Buffy started, but Faith cut her off. 

“When he feels like it, K., that’s how he rolls.” 

“When he feels like it?” Kendra wasn't sure why Faith addressed everyone by their first initial. Was it meant as a codename, to enhance security, or just an insistence on formal speech? 

“Angel’s not…” Buffy seemed to be searching for words “not really big into scheduling, is the thing.” 

Kendra thought about this as they left the cemetery. She liked schedules a lot. 

“Does he not take instruction from your watcher?” 

“Giles? Ha, no…” Buffy seemed to consider this a funny idea. “Honestly they were more like study buddies, I mean back when they did interact, before…” she got quiet and trailed off. Kendra noticed that Faith’s expression showed the same curiosity she felt herself. 

She tried to understand. “Because they are alike in age?”

“What? No!” Buffy stopped, as though appalled at the comparison. “They’re not… Giles is like, old-old, and, and—”

“—and Angel is even older!” Faith completed, grinning. Buffy shot her a dirty look. Kendra wasn’t sure what was at stake in this conversation, but it wasn’t directly helping her. 

“So he operates independently? Then how would you… find him?” It seemed impractical to just hope he would decide to turn up at a convenient moment. 

“Well, I guess I could give you his address, you could try going there directly…”

“Why?” Faith asked, with a pointed tone Kendra hoped was just curiosity. “You want to chat with him about vampire stuff?” 

Kendra nodded. “Vampire stuff.” 

“I guess that makes sense,” Buffy said thoughtfully. “You’re probably the only two good vampires in the world right now. You should compare notes.” 

“Yes.” They had entered the final cemetery on their route, and it was getting late. Kendra reflected on the phrase ‘compare notes’. She hadn’t made any notes, though she was sure her master recorded many things. And before that, her Watcher had kept a meticulous diary of her work. 

“It had not occurred to me to operate independently, as a hunter of demons.” She could hardly imagine working without someone to guide her, to keep her in check — not before, and certainly not now, when she was half demon herself. “Did he operate that way in the years before meeting you?” 

“Um, I’m not sure exactly…” Kendra began to worry she might be alienating Buffy with this line of questioning, which she was an outcome she could not afford.

“Yeah, you made it sound like he was mostly just hangin’ around being angsty, right?” On the other hand, she felt like Faith might be warming up to her, which was a good outcome. “Like, basically suicidal?”

Suicidal. Kendra took a deep breath, merely out of emotional habit. I am past that stage. “I am glad that he has emerged from that darkness. He can help more people by his actions if he remains alive.” That was what her master always said: your actions define you, not your nature. Existence precedes essence. She had to believe that. 

“Well, I’m glad you’ve come around on this point.” Buffy was smiling at her gently. “I still remember when you two first met, you almost killed him, all ‘vampires must be slain.’” Kendra winced. She felt some chagrin at having taken a stance that would now condemn her…but the fact was she had never had much of a head for moral nuance. She hated that her very existence was now a nuance. 

“Wait, you tried to kill Angel the first you met him?” Faith seemed to find this extremely funny. “Me too!” She stepped forward, holding her flat hand high, as though to… strike her? Kendra flinched, then, when no blow fell, extended her own hand in mimicry. Their palms touched, and she felt how much heat was radiating from Faith’s skin. It felt nice. She missed body heat. 

“I did, and I would have succeeded, had Spike not intervened to rescue him from the sun!” She let herself boast a little, until she saw the hurt look on Buffy’s face, and lowered her hand awkwardly.  

“Hey.” They all jumped at the voice; standing amidst the bushes was Angel himself, cloaked in shadow. It wasn’t clear how long he had been standing there, or how much he had heard. She fought back rage at not having heard his approach. 

“Oh hey Angel!” Buffy seemed to consider this normal, though Faith was rolling her eyes. “We were just, uh,” Buffy glanced at Kendra, “well, we were just wrapping up, and uh, I think Kendra wanted to talk to you.” 

Angel gave her a long, searching, look, and eventually nodded. Their patrol was over, and dawn was approaching, so the two of them let Buffy and Faith depart, and started walking silently off through the bushes. 

She wasn’t sure, after all that, exactly what it was she wanted to say, so eventually he broke the silence. 

“So, cursed with a soul, huh?” 

She nodded, slowly, but couldn’t help correcting his wording. “The divine spark is a blessing.” He stopped, looked at her again, looked down at the ground. She worried that saying this might seem like an attempt to shame him, an outcome she could not afford. “But also, my master says, a curse, in that all humans are cursed with this burden.” She couldn’t tell if that had helped. “My master says man is condemned to be free.”

“Don’t you have any opinions of your own?” She bristled at that. 

“It was my opinion that we should come to your aid!” Helping them stop the Sisterhood had been her duty as a Slayer, and she neither wanted nor expected any thanks for it… but she did notice who had thanked her and who had not. “My master said, at first, that we had done enough already, that we had earned the right to… ‘relax and enjoy life.’” We both died trying to do our duty, Kendra, if we can’t cut ourselves some slack after that, when can we?

“You think we get to enjoy anything?” He seemed angry at that. “This is meant to be torture! A way to atone for being a monster.” She flinched at that word, and saw him instantly regret it. 

“I’m sorry, I just… the whole point of the curse is to make happiness impossible. I think we both learnt that the hard way.” 

She shook her head. “The spell is only broken by a moment of pure, true, joy. Not by just any sort of happiness.” Surely this was obvious? He must have been happy about things, to varying degrees, over the last century? 

“You make it sound like it’s an easy thing to figure out that difference.” They had started walking again.

“Not easy, but imperative.” She didn’t understand how he could be content to live in uncertainty. “Do you not wish to know the precise boundaries of the spell’s conditions?” Ignorance was what had led to disaster last time; her master had been determined never to let that happen again.

“The way I see it, I’m meant to suffer, so I keep suffering. I’m not going to try to… game the system for my own benefit. I’m not looking to find loopholes.” 

“I can share the results of my master’s experiments—”

“It’s not something to experiment with!” 

She decided it would be a bad idea to share much more. Clearly, he would not appreciate her master’s methods. And if she made him doubt her reliability, that might compromise her standing with the others. So she fell silent.

They had reached the top of a low hill. Out to the east, the sky was growing pale. For a time they both looked out at it, saying nothing. Then he sighed. 

“Seems like you already have your own ideas about how vampires ought to live. Or at least your master does.” She didn’t like the way he pronounced that word. “So what do you want from me? My handy tips and tricks? Best places to eat rats?” 

She couldn’t help sneering. “Animal blood is not sufficiently nourishing. My master says that subsisting purely on animals leads to mental instability and depression.” 

“Depression!” He laughed bitterly. “I told you, we’re not supposed to be happy.”

“My ma—” she decided to leave off the attribution, “I think if you are never happy while doing good, your motivation to do good will be fragile. Then if you ever lose the divine spark, you will not desire to regain it.” 

He grimaced. The comparison between them was obvious. Perhaps this was why he had been avoiding her. 

“And why did you desire to regain it?” He looked tormented by the question. “Why did you ask for this? Even while you were… one of them?” 

She considered how to answer this. “To be true to myself. I am Kendra, the Vampire Slayer, and I took pride in that.” She did not add 'and I had nobody else to be.' 

“Right, of course,” he laughed bitterly again, “it was out of pride. Because you actually liked who you were in life…” She realised she had no idea what Angel’s mortal life had been like. She wondered if Buffy did. She wondered if she should ask him. 

“And so now you feel entitled to enjoy eternal life as a vampire, and you think you’re too good to feed from animals. What, you drink blood from your master’s teat?” This conversation did not seem to be going well. Probably she should not ask him about his mortal life. “Or do they find you human victims and then coach you on how to justify it to yourself?” 

“No!” She glared, unsure whether to dignify that with a response. Her feeding system was mundane and straightforward, but explaining it would feel like granting him authority to judge her. 

“You just don’t want to admit,” he seemed to be angry at himself as much as at her, “that underneath it all, we’re demons!” 

His fangs were out, and hers were too. She couldn’t let this degenerate into a brawl… even though she really wanted to. 

“And you,” she snarled, “do not want to admit that you are a man!” 

She didn’t know what would have happened, if they had remained undisturbed. But out of nowhere a lancing pain shot through her inner thigh, then vanished. Her master’s amulet. She looked away, the spell of violence broken. Her master, somewhere, was signalling her that it was getting late, and she needed to return to them before sunrise. 

She turned abruptly and walked away, glancing back only once: when she did, she saw Angel staring longingly at the pinkening sky, then turning away himself, hurrying back to his own lair. She supposed she could stillask Buffy for the address of said lair, but she didn’t think either of them wanted to talk any further. 

As she descended the hill, she found herself also looking out at the approaching dawn. She remembered the times she had stood on a hill like this, or a roof, or at an open window, waiting for the sun to come for her. Sometimes Drusilla had found her, compelled her to come back to the darkness with one hypnotic look. Sometimes she had been there because Drusilla had commanded it, implant a compulsion to self-immolate out of some mad whim or fit of pique. But Spike had always found her and angrily wrestled her away, knowing that Drusilla would be inconsolable if she ever actually succeeded in destroying her toy. 

And one time, more recently, after her soul had been restored, she had spent too long dwelling on what Mr. Zabuto would think if he saw her now, and then she had climbed to the roof of her own accord, overcome with the shame of becoming what she had most hated. Her master had talked her down, insisting first that she had nothing to be ashamed of and then, when that didn’t work, insisting that they needed her, and couldn’t afford to lose her. And after she had finally come down, and received her reward, they had both agreed to bind her to the amulet. 

Chapter Text

“Hey Kendra, do you want to try some of my—wait,” Xander paused, “can vampires even drink non-blood beverages?” 

“A dead stomach will refuse it. Some practice enough to keep it down, but they cannot be nourished by it.” They were sitting around a couple of tables at the Bronze, where Buffy had insisted that Kendra come out to join them. So far, Faith thought, she didn’t seem to be picking up the vibe. 

She watched Xander pepper Kendra with the latest in a series of questions: about her, about how she came back, about the vampiric condition. He knew Angel for years and never felt so curious, I wonder why… To be fair, Angel probably wouldn’t have answered: Kendra was hardly effusive but she gave admirably direct answers. But it was hard not to think that part of the explanation was that Angel was an attractive man while Kendra was, Faith had to admit, a very beautiful woman. 

“And what happens if you cut your hair? Does it grow back or are you stuck like that?” Xander was sitting beside Kendra, with Buffy and then Faith on her other side, and Willow and Oz across from them. 

“My body seeks always to return to the form it had when I died. While I slumber, cut hair will grow back, wounds will heal.”

And to be even fairer, Faith reflected, Xander was basically the last of them to meet Kendra. She reappeared a few days ago, but she hadn’t been to the school since, certainly not during daylight hours. She’d patrolled with Faith and Buffy, so Faith had seen her a few times, and it seemed like she accompanied her ‘master’ when they were studying magic with Willow. And Oz, she supposed, had met Kendra once, at least in wolf form. But this might be the first time for Xander; maybe that was why Buffy had been so insistent that Kendra come to the Bronze with them. 

“So,” Xander ate a peanut thoughtfully, “you used to be a slayer, and now you’re a vampire. What I want to know is, do you get all the powers of both? Or is it like, only the highest bonus in each category applies?”

“Xander, she’s not a D&D character.” Willow rolled her eyes, but Faith figured it was a fair question. If she did end up having to fight this girl, she wanted to know what she’d be up against. And Kendra didn’t seem to have a problem answering it. 

“I retain all the memories and skills I gained from being a Slayer, but the gifts of strength and speed are lost, replaced with the lesser gifts of vampiredom.” She talked like she was reciting a lesson, even here surrounded by drunkards and bad music. 

“Ah, so for you the dark powers of the undead are actually sort of a downgrade?” Xander was rubbing his chin in an exaggerated gesture of thoughtfulness. 

“Which means I,” Faith pointed out, “am still the strongest member of the team.”

Kendra turned to her, with a trace of irritation in her eyes. “You are stronger than Buffy?”

Faith grinned. “We can do a demonstration, if you want.” 

“Faith, I’m not arm-wrestling you again. Especially not at the Bronze.” Buffy’s eye roll made Faith really want to arm-wrestle her again. “Besides, a small difference in brute strength is far from the most important thing in combat.” Whatever. 

“That is true, Buffy.” Kendra turned to Faith. “I have seen you fight. Your form is sloppy.” 

“Oh! Is that so?” She was trying to keep up the tone of playful banter, but she didn’t mind if a threatening edge cut through it. Buffy seemed to notice, and put a hand on her shoulder. 

“Don’t worry Faith, she said that to me when we first met too.” 

She sat back in her chair, staring Kendra down. They might have to fight soon, just to break the tension. Kendra returned her stare, then turned back to Xander.

“Also, I have gained immunity to mundane weapons. ” 

“Oh yeah!” Xander started doing a bad Dracula impression. “Fool! Bullets cannot kill the undead!”

“Can hurt them like hell though…” Buffy remarked, as though thinking about something else. She was watching the mediocre band up on stage again. 

“Pain is temporary. If any of you need someone to take a bullet for you, I stand ready.” 

Nobody quite knew what to say to this. From across the table, Oz chimed in. “And you’re sure that you can’t catch any sort of infection?” The others sitting there shared his look of mild concern; apparently Kendra had been bitten quite a lot while getting Oz back under control. 

“I cannot catch anything. Vampires cannot become werewolves. My wounds are smoothly and perfectly healed: see.” She lifted her tank top to show them the unblemished skin of her belly where, just days ago, there had been wolf-mangled flesh. But then she kept lifting, and Faith was sure she caught a glimpse of her bra before a chorus of consternation from Buffy and Willow stopped her. 

“Oh, uh, hey, you don’t need to…” Buffy was almost physically helping her pull her top down again. “We believe you, about the healing.” Faith sighed inwardly. Does everyone in Sunnydale hate fun? 

“Do not worry,” Kendra seemed equally surprised by their reactions. “I am just like you now.” 

That prompted more confused looks. “Just like us?” Willow repeated, “how?”

“My transformation has led me to be… more in touch with my desires.” Kendra seemed hesitant, but she forged ahead. “I am now sexually liberated. California is a sexually liberated society, unlike my old community. You do not have hang ups about sex and nudity.” This was intensely funny to Faith. 

“Well, uh,” Buffy tried to put things delicately, “you know, liberation is relative…” 

“Yeah,” Faith grinned, “this lot have all sorts of hang ups about sex you can’t even imagine!” That got her some annoyed looks from Willow and Buffy, and curiosity from Kendra. Xander wasn’t looking at her at all. 

“They do?” 

“Oh yeah. If you want to see liberated, you gotta hang with the Bostonians.” She started to lift her own top to illustrate, prompting another chorus of awkward noises.

“Hey, hey, Faith, that’s not necessary…” Faith took comfort in the fact that Kendra had been watching intently, apparently without any objection. And Xander had been staring so much that his eye was twitching. 

“See, Kendra, the point is,” Buffy tried to steer things back in the direction of decency, “Faith doing that just now made everyone else uncomfortable.” Faith sat back, trying to ignore how resentful she felt when Buffy did her whole ‘sometimes I crave a nonfat yoghurt’ routine’. “I guess you could call that a sexual hang up.” 

“I see,” Kendra was chewing this over. “When I first came to Sunnydale, I was told to wear my most provocative clothing, to blend in with the Californians.” 

“Oh, you mean the gold hoops and the purple belly top?”, Buffy asked, “that… actually explains a lot. This,” she indicated Kendra’s current, more muted and practical, attire, “feels much more you.”

“I dunno, I liked the belly top.” Xander chimed in. 

“Course you did.” He looked at Faith when she said that, and his eye twitched again. She realised that it twitched every time he looked at her. Probably he still had some unresolved feelings from when they fucked. Whatever. Men only wanted one thing, then they got mad when a girl turned out to only want that thing too. It wasn’t enough to fuck you, they needed you to be upset about it afterwards. Fuck that noise. 

“Hey, I just thought it was, uh, fetching.” To be fair, Faith kind of wanted to see Kendra in this ‘provocative’ outfit herself. But when his eye twitched again she felt deeply annoyed. This guy had fooled around with both Cordelia and Willow, openly nursed a crush on Buffy that he had routinely made her problem, was now flirting shamelessly with Kendra, not to mention leering constantly at every girl who passed by. He was hardly pure and innocent. Admittedly, she vaguely remembered him saying something about never getting with anyone before her. But so what? What entitled him to a first time that was all sweet and loving? Hers certainly hadn’t been. Men just hate it when women beat them at their own game. 

“So, uh, have you actually travelled much? I mean outside of Sunnydale?” Buffy seemed to want more sense of the breadth of Kendra’s cultural experience. 

“When I was called, I went on missions to many places in the Western Hemisphere… but I did not stay long in any of them. And after my transformation, I travelled with Spike and Drusilla… but I remember little of my time with them.” 

“Right, sounds like that was... a bad time.” 

Kendra nodded. “A bad time.” She still hadn’t shared much, if any, detail of her time with this vampire couple who the others all seemed intimately familiar with.  

Willow seemed to remember something suddenly. “Oh, you know Spike came back here in November for a bit?” Kendra seemed shocked.

“I did not know that. What was his purpose?”

“He was mad that Drusilla had left him,” Willow explained, “so he wanted me to put a love spell on her.” 

Kendra sat for a while absorbing this. “That must have been after I escaped. Their relationship was always strange to me, but it was clear that it was unravelling. Their final descent into acrimony was my opportunity.” She looked at Buffy. “Did you slay him?” 

“Not…exactly,” Buffy looked awkward, “it was sort of a, a hostage situation, and there was a really big fight, and then we made sure he left town, but… no.”

Kendra nodded impassively. “Then I will kill him myself.” Faith was warming up to Kendra.

“Yeah you will,” she leant over to offer a high five. “Kill that fucker.” Kendra still didn’t seem to understand high fives, but raised her hand in imitation of Faith’s, and seemed to welcome the hearty slap she received. Buffy looked mildly uncomfortable, but that was Buffy. You’re easily the most prolific killer in town B., why do you still pretend you don't like killing?

“And so after they broke up,” Xander resumed his questions, “you were…?” 

“An animal.” 

Xander didn’t seem to have expected that answer. “Right, but, I mean, where?”

“I do not know, exactly. I managed to stow away on a cargo plane from Brazil to Los Angeles, but mostly I roamed wildly until I came upon my master.” Kendra looked down. “I prefer not to speak of it.” 

“Right, the master.” Xander nodded, “but not, like, The Master the master? Not the ‘The Master’ master, but another master?” Kendra stared at him. 

“The Magpie.” 

“Right, yeah. The bird person who Willow’s been studying with.” He saw Kendra’s frown and backtracked, “and I use ‘bird person’ as a term of respect!” He glanced around at the others for support.

“But seriously… what’s their deal?” 

“My master is a very private person.” 

“Right, but there’s ‘being a very private person’, and then there’s ‘no-one may ever see my skin’.” He leaned in closer. “Have you seen their skin?”

Kendra smiled mysteriously and ducked the question. “My master keeps no secrets from me, nor I from them. But I will die before I break their confidence.” 

Everyone sat around, a little disappointed. Kendra returning was a surprise, but they could roughly understand how it had happened. But the Magpie was mysterious to all of them, even Willow. Now that Faith thought of it, the gang gathered here were actually the least curious: Giles and Angel seemed the most determined to unmask them, poring over ancient tomes or squeezing underworld contacts to find information about any demon or sorcerer going by that name. But all they had found was vague symbolic themes: the magpie as a fortune-telling bird, or a devil-bird, or a thief and collector of shiny trinkets. But as an actual person, they seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. 

“But we owe them one, right? Because they’re, uh,” Willow looked around the table, seemingly concerned to stick up for the Magpie, “they’re the one we have to thank for bringing you back.” 

Kendra nodded slowly. “In a sense. Drusilla brought back my body and mind with a demon’s soul, but my master restored my human soul.” Faith still had only a very shaky idea what any of that actually meant, but Kendra seemed to consider it self-explanatory. “And they will restore it again immediately if it should ever be lost.” 

“Yeah! Wait, immediately?” Willow seemed surprised, “Wouldn’t you need to find a new Orb of Thesulah?” Faith started to zone out, the way she did whenever Willow started talking about magical technicalities. 

“My master refined the spell. Instead of shattering on completion, the Orb collapses to the size of a marble. It can be re-used, but only on the same target.” 

“Oh that’s nifty!” Willow beamed. “It’s so cool that people are still refining spells after hundreds of years! Like, we don’t have to be stuck with the millennia-old evils and stuff.” 

“Yes,” Kendra nodded emphatically, “I have been learning that things of greater age are not always of greater power.”

Then she seemed to remember something, and turned to Faith, “Such as Kakistos, whom you slew.” Faith’s whole body tensed when she heard that name. “News of his death spread far through the underworld. When I heard that you and Buffy had slain him, I gained much respect for you both.” 

Faith blinked. Ok. Maybe this girl was alright. The fear was passing, and the compliment brought back the satisfaction of having finally killed the bastard. She decided to return the favour. Show Buffy she could play nice sometimes. 

“So what about you? What was your toughest kill?” 

“A suvolte demon, defending its nest,” Kendra replied immediately, “its hide is almost impenetrable.” 

“Awesome.” She appreciated that Kendra didn’t deflect the question like Buffy did when they first met. She started trying to think of a story to one-up her with. 

“However, my toughest fight was a vampire in Florida who kept alligators under his thrall.” Wait. That sounded familiar. “But he escaped me and fled North.” 

“No way? Did he go to Missouri?” 

“I do not know; my mission in Florida was complete, and I had to travel immediately to Peru.” 

“That’s wild, I think I got hi–” Faith wasn’t sure if the others had remembered her recounting her own experience with the alligator-keeping vampire. Xander had seemed very interested at the time (or at least interested in asking if she was naked while wrestling the alligators), but now he was interrupting her to ask Kendra more questions. 

“Why Peru?” 

“A cult there worshipped a demon beneath mount Sebancaya, who had awoken unexpectedly after resting dormant since the time of the Inca. My watcher…” she paused suddenly: mentioning her watcher seemed to be uncomfortable for Kendra. Faith got the impression he didn’t know she was ‘back’. “My watcher believed that a mummy’s spirit had been guarding the area in the spirit realm, and something roused or destroyed the mummy, allowing the demon to awaken.” 

An odd energy passed around the table – first Willow, then Xander, then Buffy, grew wide-eyed, and looked at each other guiltily. But whatever uncomfortable secret bound them together, they didn’t want to share it with Faith. As usual. 

Kendra hadn’t even noticed, still seemingly brooding about her Watcher. Faith sort of wanted to ask about him, to get more of a sense of whether he had been a manipulative bastard like Post, or just a stuffy old fart like Giles, or more like what Diana had been… but she didn’t want to have to talk about Diana, so she said nothing. 

“Anyone want to dance?” Buffy eventually broke the awkward silence by standing up and starting towards the dancefloor. 

“Sure.” Faith might not be able to take a bullet but she was sure she could dance better than Kendra. And dancing beside Buffy was almost like dancing with Buffy. 

But even as Faith stood up, Buffy was reaching back for Kendra, who seemed decidedly unconvinced. But Buffy pulled her up and the three of them moved to the dancefloor. Glancing back she saw Xander, Willow, and Oz still in their seats, just awkwardly bopping their heads to the music. 

Buffy was dancing facing Kendra, moving slowly and trying to get her to join in. Faith wanted to push in between them, but she figured that wouldn’t go over well, so she danced close to Buffy, coordinating her movements and watching the smaller girl’s body shake and sway. 

Kendra was… dancing? Sort of? She was moving, but her feet were fixed in place and her face pointed at the floor; the movement was all in her lifted arms, swaying almost in time with the music. She stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd, and Faith realised that, given what she had heard about Kendra’s life, she might have only ever danced in church. 

It was reassuring to know she was indeed better at dancing than Kendra, but the frustrating thing was that Buffy wasn’t watching her; she was facing Kendra and Faith was behind her, winding and bouncing completely unseen. That would have to change. 

So she danced her way around them, coming up behind Kendra and meeting Buffy’s eyes over her shoulders. On either side of her, they smiled at each other: she imagined the smile meant 'good job Faith, you’re making Kendra feel included! How kind and welcoming!' She’d take it. 

She pushed a little nearer to Buffy, pressing up closer to Kendra in the process. The lack of body heat was striking, especially compared to the heat that radiated from Buffy. She reached her arms out on either side, and Buffy took them, holding her hands so their dancing arms formed a cage around Kendra. 

Then Kendra looked up from the floor, over her shoulder, into Faith’s eyes, seeing her there for the first time, so close they were almost grinding on each other. Her face was unreadable and her movements barely changed, but Faith suddenly became acutely aware of her body, her hair, her skin. She pulled Buffy’s arms, so that she was also brushing up against Kendra, their three bodies almost entangled. 

Kendra was still looking back at her, and despite her inept dancing her face looked… extremely into it? Eyes half closed, mouth half open. Then she licked her lips, and suddenly Faith felt a wave of adrenaline. Vampire! She leapt back, jostling the people behind her. 

Buffy had felt it too, and jumped back at the same time: Kendra was in a combat stance, looking back and forth between them, with her eyes yellow and her face demonic and her fangs extended. Faith and Buffy were also instinctively ready, fists raised. People around them looked on in alarm, though any regulars must surely have seen at least a few vampire fights here in their time. 

Kendra seemed to realise what had happened, she brought her legs together, hunched forwards, closed her eyes. The ridges on her brow vanished, showing just a human face awash in shock and shame, and she moved to leave the dancefloor. 

Did she do that? Did we do that? Faith now recognised the rush of adrenaline: it was what she always got around vampires, especially when they let their game face show. Her visceral awareness of Kendra’s condition had faded into the background while sitting at the table, but something had reactivated it. Maybe getting so close to Kendra had triggered her and Buffy’s spidey-senses to tingle, and then their jumping back had brought out her fangs. Or maybe their dancing had turned her on so much that she couldn’t control herself any more (heard that one before) and they had sensed that she was about to shift. Maybe it had been a mix of both. 

“I apologise.” Kendra seemed mortified; the dancing was clearly over. Faith felt, if anything, more energised, and more drawn to her. Come on then, let’s fight it out. She had sometimes thought that she wished she had a ‘game face’, a physical transformation that would mark her shift into slayer-mode. It occurred to her suddenly that she had become a slayer right when Kendra had become a vampire: both of them got dangerous together. Come on then, let’s get dangerous together. 

“I have to go.” Kendra strode away, Buffy following and trying to reassure her. Faith stayed where she was, feeling her buzz fade into frustration. She watched as Kendra said hurried goodbyes to the others, and they began to agree amongst themselves that it was probably time for them all to be heading home. It was a shame. She realised that in the moment she had really wanted to experience a fight with Kendra. Or whatever else might happen between them once the inhibitions were gone.